Fairy Tales From Texas

Texas Governor Rick Perry

In today’s toxic political climate, the truth is sometimes hard to recognize. Truth pales in the face of fairy tales, creative deception and outright lies. I looked past the talk of death panels and the government “killing granny”. Now I listen to the talk from Gov. Rick Perry that Texans are thinking about seceding, warning “Washington had better watch out”.

I brushed the threat aside as more political rhetoric designed to stir up far-right wing Republicans until a talk show host intimated that Texas had a written agreement from the government giving them the right to secede, and also to divide itself into five states. Later, I found a third claim which says that the Texas flag gets special rights over all other state flags in the nation.

Let me debunk all three of these claims as quickly as possible. The idea of a state leaving the union was settled a long time ago. Remember the Civil War. The second claim died with Texas’ readmission to the Union which left out any provision for Texas to divide into additional states. Finally, the Texas flag gets no special treatment. Under the flag code, any flag may fly at the same level as the U. S. flag on adjacent poles. The requirement is that the U. S. flag be on its own right.

It might be interesting to note that Alaska actually got a referendum on the ballot a few years ago to study secession. The drive to secede got nowhere, of course.